Non-woven fabrics, including those useable as bedding blankets are well known in the art and various constructions have had wide consumer acceptance. However, many of these products have undesirable surface characteristics or poor wear life characteristics.
An example of a non-woven fabric is found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,506,529, to Sanders, issued Apr. 14, 1970, which discloses a fabric with a substrate of foamed plastics material and facings of randomly oriented fibrous material which have been needled through both the substrate and each opposite side facing. This structure exhibits a surface texture of somewhat pimpled appearance due to the projection beyond the surface of the fabric of compacted fibers which have been displaced through the facing by the needling of the fibers from the opposite face. These fibers extend substantially perpendicular to the fabric, and form clumps of fibers or pimples on the facing surface, which do not disappear even after subsequent brushing or napping operations.
In many prior constructions the dimensional stability of the fabric is achieved, at least in part, from the substrate combined with relatively bulky fabrics; however, such combinations precluded the formation of lightweight blanket constructions.
It has been suggested that strength can be achieved by reinforcement of the substrate. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,329,552 to Hughes, issued July 4, 1967 discloses the addition of stitching to a non-woven fibrous core and the use of the core as a substrate in a needle-loomed blanket material. While providing strength, the core must be made relatively bulky if it is to have desirable thermal properties.
It has also been suggested that a stitching reinforcement can be applied to foam material. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,051,228, to Wilson et. al, issued Sept. 27, 1977, dimensional stabilization of foamed plastics sheet material in one longitudinal direction is achieved by longitudinally stitching the material while it is under tension. This submerges the stitches in the foam and reinforces it. However, the foam so constructed is not readily suitable for a blanket construction.